Street Cultivation 3

by Sarah Lin

  With another fighter swooping down toward him, Rick used another Bunyan's Step to escape. Once again, he had someone attacking him almost as soon as the movement had stopped. If not for all his footwork training, he would almost certainly have been knocked straight through the side of the sphere and disqualified. He realized that they could easily predict his movements because he would always stop against the sphere.

  On his third leap, Rick stretched his sensory Lucore to its maximum. He appeared on the side of the aura sphere with a foot flying toward his head, but this time he expected it.

  Rick grabbed the kick and swung the person directly through the side of the sphere. The man broke through the aura, desperately scrabbling to get a grip on him, and shot out into the arena. As far as Rick was concerned, that meant he no longer existed. All that mattered was the world contained within the sphere, which was still filled with warriors.

  Eliminating one of the people targeting him had earned Rick a bit of breathing room, since they knew that he wasn't an easy target. He took the time to examine the rest of the fight, but it was a chaotic brawl. Too many of the other fighters had flight or agility Lucores, leaving his Bunyan's Step feeling a little rudimentary. Throwing himself into the middle of that fight would be a mistake.

  But there was one person remaining stationary: the woman at the top of the sphere. A fighter attempted to creep up the side toward her, only for her to turn at the last second, an arc of aura bursts hammering him into the side of the sphere. He barely managed to cling to it instead of being knocked through, but had to fall back. Clearly she was prepared for a frontal assault.

  Smiling, Rick readied his ranged defense Lucore and prepared to leap. He threw himself directly at the woman and she naturally met him with a series of bursts that would have hammered him straight back down. But at the last second Rick drew all of the bursts into the crystal sphere within him.

  For a split second he saw the shock on her face, then his knee slammed into her chin. She smashed back through the top of the aura sphere, briefly flailing in the air before coming back down.

  Though she landed on top of the sphere, furious and only slightly injured, red aura began to cling to her. She'd been out of contact with the aura sphere and was thus disqualified. Cursing in Russian, she jumped off the side and fell away.

  Realizing he was a target at the top of the sphere, Rick leapt through three different Bunyan's Steps around the sides of the sphere, just to escape anyone pursuing him. Clinging to the side of the sphere was easy, but it was also risky, since a good blow might knock him out regardless of his defensive cores. He crept closer to the bottom where it met the ground, trying to find another target.

  Someone flashed in front of him and Rick caught a glimpse of fists covered in flames. He dodged the first strike, but his attacker was coming with a rapid flurry of blows and eventually he could only block, bracing his aura against the flames.

  Suddenly Rick was hurtling backward through the air. He realized that he had been tricked: the flames were a distraction, hiding the true nature of the attack. It hadn't attempted to harm him, simply push him with a great deal of force so he was disqualified.

  He felt his back hit the aura sphere and break into the cold air.

  Chapter 30: Warrior's Reward

  If Rick had been the fighter he was a year ago, he would have lost. He might have given up, or he might have fallen from the sphere before he even realized what was happening. But after juggling so many different Lucores, Rick had already figured out what had happened and he reacted on instinct. As he broke through, he reached out and used his own aura to grab the edge of the sphere.

  His body jerked away from him, out in the cold air, but his arm remained inside the sphere.

  For a moment he hung there, disoriented outside the sphere. The crowd cheered thunderously, nearly stunning him, but his instincts insisted there was no time for that. If he wasn't disqualified, he needed to get back inside before he was targeted.

  Bursts of aura began slamming into him, but Rick held his defensive cores firm and dragged himself back inside the sphere. He'd barely pulled his head in when he was hit head on by a blizzard, but he channeled lucrim to Katenka and she manifested around him in a swirl of snow. Not only did she prevent it from freezing him, she managed to blunt the force and he was able to fully pull himself back into the sphere.

  "That was great!" Despite the fight still going on, Raggest turned to him with a grin. "But others are going to try to copy you."

  Rick didn't understand at first, then saw that the idea of partially leaving the sphere had caught on. A woman was crawling around the outside to get into a better position, while someone else hung on the outer curve with just one hand inside.

  Raggest gathered aura in his fists and then unleashed two massive beams simultaneously. Without a firm grip, both of the contestants were blown away from the sphere and immediately disqualified. Though Rick braced himself as Raggest clenched fists again, no more blasts came his way.

  "I want to fight you without any tricks!" Raggest grinned, then threw himself at another opponent instead.

  Did that mean a temporary truce? Though Rick didn't trust it entirely, he didn't target Raggest. There were fewer competitors now, which gave him more space to work... but also made him a target. A huge woman was stomping around the side of the sphere toward him, walking on the steep angle as if it was even ground. Running would just seem like cowardice, so he braced himself for a brawl.

  Her fist hit hard, but it was nothing his defensive core couldn't handle. But the force pushed him back a step, and he lost his balance while trying to keep his foot in the aura. Before he could catch himself, another blow came. Rick managed to block that too, but it sent him staggering.

  He realized that if he kept that up, he would never regain his balance. So Rick gritted his teeth and let the blows through. They hammered into his chest and head, each one slamming into his defensive core. But without trying to block, Rick was able to regain his balance and push back, gripping the side of the sphere some distance away. That earned him a moment, but only a moment as the woman leapt at him with both fists rising overhead.

  In midair, a white-hot beam of aura blasted her out of the side of the sphere. From the other side, Raggest gave him a thumbs up.

  But a moment later, he was struck by a flurry of dark motes. They impacted strangely as they struck him, not exploding but seeming to shake his entire body. Raggest shuddered as his body was battered by the flood of motes, but managed to raise his hand toward the man who was releasing them.

  A beam shot out, but for the first time, Raggest saw it stopped. It hit a wall of motes and they seemed to consume it, eating pieces of the beam with each impact until it was reduced to nothing. The storm of particles only intensified, battering Raggest down to the bottom of the sphere. He tried to summon a barrier around himself, but the motes ate away at it as well. They would obviously overcome him soon and he would be forced outside the sphere.

  For a moment, Rick hesitated. It would be a good strategy to let Raggest get eliminated, but he discarded that as bad sportsmanship. What made him hesitate was the hungry way Alger watched the match, and that nearly forgotten dream...

  Rick leapt off the side of the sphere, trying to absorb the motes. They shifted direction, swept into one of the crystalline spheres, and Rick closed the distance to his target. But the man frowned at him and began releasing more, and suddenly the sphere felt unbelievably heavy. Though Rick tried to absorb them better, he realized that was a mistake. They were overwhelming his capacity to absorb and some motes began to touch his body.

  Each impact didn't hurt, they simply left part of his body feeling as though it was completely gone. If he hadn't been under assault, he would have looked down to check that they hadn't erased holes in his flesh. His defensive core strained to compensate, and the Dark Blood Kettle surged as it rarely did, but he could tell that it wouldn't be enough.

  Then a beam hit the man in th
e chest and the assault of motes stopped. He managed to hold on, but Raggest released another beam and struck him against the side of the sphere. Their opponent struggled, forming a wall of motes that ate away Raggest's next attempt.

  Rick plunged directly through it, his elbow slamming into the man's jaw. Their opponent finally flew backward, leaving the sphere and collapsing to the ground.

  When Rick turned around, he realized that the sphere was almost completely empty. Only Raggest remained, straightening and wiping some blood from his mouth. He grinned, but didn't say anything. Rick found himself smiling back and let himself skid down the side of the sphere so they were facing each other.

  For a moment they were silent and Rick became aware of the crowds roaring around them. He let that sound fall away and just focused on his opponent. At any moment Raggest would move, then the fight would begin.

  He saw the other man's arm shift and leapt in a Bunyan's Step. When Rick caught the side of the arena, he saw blinding beams shooting both where he had been standing, and where he was most likely to have leaped beside Raggest. Doubting he could outplay his opponent that way, Rick went straight for him the next moment.

  Though he felt a beam impact his body, Rick hadn't been planning to appear beside Raggest and then strike him: he ran straight into the other man shoulder first. Unfortunately, Raggest wasn't knocked back enough, digging his feet in and blasting Rick in the face with another beam.

  There was no more time for technique, Rick just tried to pummel his opponent. He wasn't sure if his absorption Lucore was overloaded or if it didn't work against the pale beams, but every impact seared through him. Despite all the lucrim combined into so many cores, they were rapidly being burned apart. Rick started drawing heavily on Katenka's bond just to hang on a little longer and land a few more blows.

  All at once he saw it: Raggest failed to defend his neck. Rick struck for the target even as he saw a blinding light flash at his chest.

  When Rick could feel again, he was flat on his back on the arena floor. The bleary smears of white and black gradually focused into the dark stands around the stadium. Rick realized that he had made a mistake, going for a weak point when the actual goal was to knock his opponent out of the arena.

  Which was empty.

  Rick struggled painfully to get up, staring at the empty sphere. Across the arena, he saw Raggest lying on his back, having fallen out of the sphere as well. He had absolutely no idea what had happened... but then his attention was captured by the large screens overhead.

  They were showing a slow motion replay: Raggest's blast had knocked Rick out of the sphere immediately, but the blow to the neck had sent Raggest falling backward. Rick had left the sphere nearly a full second before Raggest, yet the announcers and commentators seemed to be talking excitedly. One of the replays showed a close up of the strike to the neck, apparently approving of its brutality.

  Abruptly worried, Rick looked down, but Raggest was struggling to his feet, grinning. "That was - ow - that was amazing!" He rubbed his neck in pain, but then rushed over to Rick. Though Rick thought he was probably in better shape, he felt burned out and didn't feel like moving so quickly.

  Still, when the other man thrust a hand toward him, Rick was able to lift his arm enough to shake it. The crowd roared approval around them.

  The aura sphere finally faded, leaving Rick momentarily blinded in the absence of its light. An enormous man with a beard half the size of his considerable chest smashed down onto the arena beside them. Rick instinctively tried to raise his arms to fight, only to have his wrist grasped and thrust into the air alongside Raggest's.

  "Best fight I've seen in years!" The man roared out something in Russian, then turned back to them and stopped dangling the two by their wrists. "Mark my words, you both receive great seal of Siberia."

  Rick found himself smiling. It hurt to stand and it was taking all his self-control not to rub his scorched torso, but he actually felt good. For winning, yes, but more importantly because the fight had been a satisfying success for him.

  "I would like to pay my respects as well."

  The sound of the smooth voice made all Rick's sense of accomplishment drain away. Alger stood beside them, both hands still over his cane, looking genteel except for the grin on his face. It spread wider and wider, as if it would tear out the sides of his face.

  "This is what the Showdown should be! This is what the new generation needs!" Alger raised one hand toward them and a stylized letter A burned into the air in front of their faces. "I grant you both my seal as well, in the hope that you will go on to do great things!"

  It should have been his moment of triumph, yet Rick could only stare at the mad grimace that no longer resembled a smile. Alger walked toward him, eyes burning with the fires of a thousand battles. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, ignoring the arena to speak to Rick alone.

  "This is all I've ever wanted from you. Brutal striving, endless ambition. This is only the beginning, you know. In time you will grow stronger and stronger, leaving behind the limits of these civilized matches. There will be only the savagery of true warriors' spirits, and then, in the end, there will be only power."

  Rick turned away from the mad grin and tried to focus on the cheering crowds.

  Chapter 31: Ether Experimentation

  Normally Melissa didn't pay too much attention to her brother's matches, beyond keeping up with the results so that she could talk to him. She was happy for his progress, but a lot of the fighting was just too fast for her, and it wasn't her favorite thing to watch anyway. Yet now that she was traveling and couldn't talk to him easily, she found herself absorbing everything she could.

  A frustrating number of Showdown events weren't put online, or were only put up on special services you had to pay for, and Melissa didn't have time for that. The last really good one she'd seen had been his fight in Siberia, which had actually been pretty exciting. After that, he seemed to have kept a lower profile to build on what he'd learned in that fight.

  Sighing, Melissa closed her laptop and rolled over in her bed. Thinking about her brother would just make her loneliness worse and remind her how many days it was until they could meet.

  Instead she lay there for a while, thinking about her project. Everyone was supposed to come up with something big for the conclusion of their time as a Young Lucrim Artist of America. For most, that seemed to be just assumed to be either some kind of financial Lucore, or some kind of combat gimmick.

  Emphasis on the "gimmick". So many of the things Melissa had seen were basically just a known skill tweaked a tiny little bit so that it would technically count as something new. She didn't get the financial stuff, but she'd bet actual money that it was a similar thing. The point for most of her peers was to get a line on their resume, or their curriculum vitae as they insisted on calling it.

  For her part, she wanted to come up with something that was actually useful. This was her best chance, since as a YLAA person she had access to experts, expensive databases, and even some free resources. She thought it was funny how some of the experts actually seemed relieved to see her. A few were corporate tools, but others just seemed glad to get an interesting problem for once and became super helpful as soon as they realized she wasn't crazy.

  The problem was that she needed to come up with something that didn't just boil down to making use of her ether void. That would be unique, but it would also just be taking advantage of what she was. She could do that whenever she wanted, so she was trying to develop something cool.

  It would have been much, much easier to just stand up and get her stuff, but instead Melissa spent a while stretching half-way across her floor to grab it without standing up. Eventually she pulled back her notebook and pack of a few supplies. Manifesting her ether void had become easy and she no longer burned anything, which she was sure the expensive bed and carpet thanked the heavens for. Creating an aura that took advantage of it without just replicating it, though...

  According
to the big fancy database of aura techniques, there were 108 classes of manifestation and 108 variations, meaning 11,664 total combinations. Melissa didn't have time to try them all, but she was methodically going through the major classes and recording her results. One at a time, she summoned up her aura, combined it with her ether void, and hoped for some sort of reaction.

  A negative result. Most of them were. Melissa dutifully marked it down in her notebook and moved on to the next one. Science!

  Most of the others thought she was weird, and not only because she hadn't explained about her ether void. It was actually about how seriously she took it. Even the really committed people assumed that they'd have a cushy position waiting for them after they left the YLAA. The idea of tapping into raw desperation struck them as lower class in some way.

  Her work didn't come up with anything new, but Melissa got so wrapped up in it that she jumped and dropped her notebook when her phone beeped. Just a notification... a reminder about Lisa's call! She'd known she'd forget and put in the reminder for that very reason. Setting aside her work, Melissa grabbed her laptop again and got ready.

  "Melissa, you look well!" As usual, Lisa smiled broadly when she saw her. She was looking pretty good herself, clearly putting in extra effort while she was part of the dating scene. Normally Lisa only wore small studs in her ears, but she had larger earrings and a silver necklace on that day.

  "You wouldn't say that if you knew that I was sitting in our hotel instead of going on the trip." Melissa slumped down on the bed and sighed. "But they're touring a freaking wine cellar today. Maybe I'm just poor, but that strikes me as so ridiculously boring. I can't tell the different between a '91 Baguette and a '97 Eiffel Tower."